


Ghosts

by Augustus



Category: The Bill
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-12-21
Updated: 2002-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-11 08:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3320378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George returns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge: Kel's "write about George" challenge on Sunhill

George doesn't want them to see him here, huddled in the corner of the rearmost pew and buried deep within his hymnal. He doesn't know whether they'd render him a ghoul or frown upon his presence, but he had to come. Sun Hill is his history, much as he'd like to forget. He's not here to eulogise. Familiar faces are a punishment, weeping families a bitter reminder of what it's really like, this job he's gotten himself into, a career constable until the end.

It wasn't so long for those like Ben Haywood, time's cruelty shining in the tears on his mother's cheek. George has heard about _her_ story, although he doesn't question the loss of both her offspring; that's just the way life is, sometimes. If you think too much about right and wrong, the twin concepts become tangled and that just doesn't do when you're in the job.

Harder to ignore is the adult stoicism in the eyes of Di Worrell's son, tall and confused in his frontward pew. It's difficult not to notice the quiver to Cass' shoulders (and won't she hate that later, such a blatant show of fallibility) when someone mentions Harker's name. Spears and Riley were really just newcomers, but Monroe had been there forever it seemed, and George is glad he'll never have to walk into the Inspector's office and see that empty desk.

It feels different. Not many months in the scheme of things, but George knows that a certain point has been passed. Unfamiliar faces clutter his vision... and there are so many people absent who really should be here, if not to mourn, then to settle a score. The church is filled with the living, the current relief, but it is the ghosts that burn inside him, hazy faces that tease his senses. And he's not sure whether he is the only one here who feels frozen by the past, whether grief has made them all forget that Sun Hill had been dying long before the petrol bomb.

At the front, Taviner slumps against the standard, a reluctant hero with shadowed eyes. They're all just echoes, really, reflections of the past. If George closes his eyes, it could almost be John Boulton there, stretched and clad in uniform and glaring into the mourners as though it was all their fault. And not just this, but _everything_ , because Boulton had always known that you had to blame someone if you wanted to stay sane. He's gone now, though, dead: and George would like to be sorry, truly he would, but it was hard to cry for someone so easy to despise.

Somehow, Rod Skase had loved Boulton, though, deep beneath the self-adoration. If he'd been here today, George might have wished him well, muttering condolences he didn't mean. Rod would have shrugged and pretended not to care, because that's the way it is. Always has been; always will be. Rod was never one for eulogies. There'll always be another woman to woo and perhaps one day one of them might actually fill the gap.

It's all just seasons when it comes down to it, falling leaves and swirling winds. The faces change, the halls change and yet everything stays the same. People fade into spectres, but their voices echo in George's mind. From a distance, Chandler's artfully constructed drone splices through thoughts without time. Out on the beat, the crime circles on. There will be no pause for remembrance. Not now, not ever.

And it was the same back then, when Sun Hill remained bright and known, instead of the sepia shadow of today. When Viv Martella was killed, then that was just the way of the job, and not many cried when Cathy Marshall met her end. Stop. Change. Start. The cogs grow a little more rusty and the faces grow a little older and a little less familiar, but that's the game, and George knows it well.

Dave's not here and it's probably better this way. At least, that's what George tells himself while he peers above his hymnal, sorting through the crowd. He knows what happened - it's hard to miss things in this business - but he'd expected Dave to come nonetheless. Perhaps that's even why George is here, although he prefers to tell himself that it stems from respect and duty. If Dave were here, then it'd be easy to believe that the years hadn't passed. Tony, George, Jenny, Polly... the chain of history forms a barrier around Sun Hill, and it's too bad if George wants to abuse Dave or beg him to return, because he's not here. Just another ghost, another time.

Tony's eyes have changed, greying with his hair, and George has heard that the years have twisted him into something else. Polly's recuperating in a hospital bed, not broken by the job but by her heart, while Mickey teeters on the bridge between insanity and denial. June has grown a little colder and Jim a little more cynical and George senses that there's something between them now, born not of passion bus simply making do. Even Boyden has sunk into the background, a little less himself now that Vicky's gone for good, and Jack Meadows isn't the same man without the mane of golden curls.

George appreciates the irony in Nick comforting a mourning Cass when he can remember Nick and Sam as rivals for Smiffy's attention. It's easy to forget quarrels and arrogance when the act changes and the play rolls on. He misses Smiffy's cocksure voice, misses the arguments that ended in Nick pushed hard against a wall with no one sure whether it'd end in sex or bloodshed. But Smiffy's gone (and Uncle Bob's retired) and now Nick's pretending that Sam was his closest friend. George knows better, but he doesn't say a word.

He stays silent a lot, does George. He learnt that from the beginning, becoming an expert over the years. When Dave betrayed him, the words quietened and froze and it's never been quite the same since then. He's a little older now, a little more reserved, and he's not letting anyone into his heart again because people always leave, or die, or find someone else. Moving onwards, beginning again. And now nothing's the same and George doesn't think he could speak now if he tries.

When the service ends, George is the first to leave. He's not interested in small talk; he'd rather not comfort those whose grief is sharper than his own. Because when it comes down to it, he shouldn't be here, shouldn't have raised so many spectres when forgetting would have been safer. This time, when he drives past the station, it is for the final time, and when he turns from the boarded-up windows, for a moment his throat fills with bile. He can't go back; no one can. The beat cycles on, as the ghosts fade but never die.

**21st December 2002**


End file.
